Epiphanies
by EmaniaHilel
Summary: [OneShot] Raven comes to some realizations...[RobRae. Could even be friendshipeven if know it isn't really]


**A/N:** Don't ask me where this came from, I dunno...Oh, wait...actually I do...I was staring out the window of the building where I worked one day across the bay and the moon was out, just a pale outline against a bright blue sky, but there it was...

_**Epiphanies  
**__**by Emania**_

"_Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservations."  
_Elton Trueblood

Despite being known as monotnous and neutral, Raven did in fact indulge in favorites. It just so happened that Raven's favorite place to be in the whole of the Tower (other than her room, of course) was the place right behind the common area, just out of easy earshot of the larger than average television. It was in that certain, almost magical area where sometimes, when her teammates were busy with their media-centered pursuits, she could almost forget they were there. On this afternoon, however, Raven stood before the one-way panes of reinforced Plexiglas, not to meditate as she often did and not, as she sometimes did, to look out at the ordinary people going on about their ordinary lives, ordinarily oblivious to the things the Titans did to keep them safe and oblivious. She wrapped her hands more completely around the earthenware mug taking as much warmth from it as she could and stared out at the teeming life just beyond. Her eyes had the look they took on when she was seeing more than what was actually before her.

Raven, despite appearances however, was in fact paying rather close attention to the happenings outside the window: the way the wind tugged and pulled at the clothes and hair of the tourists (no one ever questioned her about it, but she did have better than average vision and so it wasn't so hard to see the people on the docks, even from such a distance), the looks on the faces of the ferry operators as they crossed the bay, and the way the fishermen on their barges fought to unload their daily catch. She was especially observant of the swell and cresting, the ebb and flow of the ocean.

With a sinking heart and the cold of recognition seeping into her blood, Raven turned to the other window - the window that showed the open sea. A keen eye would notice the frown in her expression and the worry in the slight lilt of her eyebrows and the bend to the corners of her lips, and especially in the twinkle of something entering her eyes. As her eyes fell on the pale outline of the full moon riding the clear afternoon sky, however, apprehension gripped at her. The clearly defined glow ringing the moon was unmistakable.

Fighting the feeling of dread, Raven sighed and sipped at her cup, attempting to swallow down the lump that had formed in her throat. There was no denying it, the signs were clear. She was sure. Once again, she sighed and frowned in earnest, "Something wicked this way comes,"(1) she whispered under her breath to no one in particular.

As recently as a year ago, Raven wouldn't have even considered telling anyone of her premonition. After all, it was vague and really not much good for anything other than as a warning to brace for a coming _something. _You couldn't stop what you couldn't identify and some things were like forces of nature and couldn't be stopped anyway. But...

Her time with the Titans had changed her, even if no one could see it except for herself. Hence, her first thought after her premonition was not, 'Oh well' as it might have been and not even, 'Here we go again' as it had been before. No, this time, her first thought was an almost _optimistic_ 'What now?'

A year, no, even a few months ago, Raven would never have even thought of wondering such a thing. That there was anything she could do _but_ brace for the coming storm would not have occurred to her. And yet, there she was, blinking at the foreboding augury and wondering what she could do to prevent the storm...as if there might actually be something she _could_ do.

Raven was never one to hid from her own deficiencies or strengths of character and she recognized and accepted the change in herself with a strange sort of detachment. It was an odd thing to realize, to be sure, but beating her own personal demon (literally, even) _had_, in fact, changed the way she saw these 'so called' certainties. She had suspected as much for months after the defeat of her father, little things that happened, small everyday nothings, but it wasn't until she was face to face with yet another uncertainty in her life that she felt the full force of the change in her.

'So, what now, indeed?'

'Well,' she reasoned as she walked into the kitchen, 'First things first: tell Robin.'

The answer to her own question had come so naturally that she wondered at how long she had been depending on the Boy Wonder so entirely. How long had her faith in him been so complete as to be the first thing that, when faced with a problem, would spring to her mind as a solution?

'Well,' she amended reasonably, 'Not a solution.'

She wasn't naïve enough to believe that telling Robin would solve the situation just by sheer grace of his knowing. But certainly, things always were better when she told him, weren't they? Burdens were easier carried when shared.

Her train of thought halted with an almost physical lurch deep in her stomach. That she would recognize these thoughts and allow them to rattle about in her active consciousness as given dogma was far more shocking and about as allarming as the realization that something was coming at all.

So alien was the mere possibility that she had, somewhere along the way, come to have such faith in someone other than herself that she didn't quite know what to do with it. And, before she could work herself up over the possibilities of what she could do with it, Robin himself walked into the kitchen as if she had summoned him...which she hadn't. At least, she didn't think she had.

"Hey, Ra-" His expression of warm welcome faded as soon as their eyes met. She sometimes forgot how completely he could read her expressions. "What's wrong?"

She had a final moment of doubt, wondering whether she should tell him at all...after all, she still felt there probably wasn't much that could be done especially because she didn't know exactly what it was the augury was pertaining to, but despite her mental doubts, her mouth opened and she spoke: "Something's coming."

He frowned and approached her, "What?" he asked.

She could still feel the certainty of the augery like a weight on her soul but she couldn't stand apart from it and couldn't describe it. She tried to search out her feeling for the answer to his question, but was left with nothing except the vague _wrongness_ that had initially alerted her to the problem. "I don't know," she admitted.

"When?"

She shrugged and hated the fact that she didn't have any more information to give him, "Soon," she offered him the most specific information she could.

He nodded briskly, "Anything else?" he asked.

His unquestioning acceptance threw her momentarily and it took her a moment to shake the useless shock from her to answer his question. "It's magical," she said surely, "And strong... and..." she looked at the window where she could see the bottom tip of the ring around the moon still riding the clear sky, "...bad."

He was next to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. The unexpected touch brought her attention back to him. He smiled warmly at her, "We'll get it."

She studied his expression for a while, looking for the signs that he was speaking the way so many humans did, making promises that they couldn't possibly think to follow through with, their words carrying no more truth than comforting white noise. What she found, however, was nothing but sincerity in his expression and nothing except determination in his aura and she knew that he believed what he promised: they would get _it_, whatever it was. The same as they had made it through Terra, survived Slade and defeated Trigon...

Looking at him, seeing his smile, feeling his hand on her shoulder, she knew that he meant every word. But what was even more surprising to her was that she believed him. And not just in that hopeful way that people believed that good would always triumph over evil or that love really did conquer all. No, she really and truly believed him.

And the identification of this and her easy acceptance of it shook her. She hadn't believed in anyone this completely since Azar.

So, she nodded and offered him a small smile in return. "I believe you," she replied, amazed to realize that it wasn't false bravado in her voice, she really believed that too.

"You sound surprised," he teased.

She shrugged, "I am," she admitted.

He squeezed her shoulder and let his hand fall away, reaching for his communicator, "You should have more faith in us, Rae," he said with a confident grin. Without waiting for a reply, he flipped the communicator open, walking toward the common area.

As Raven watched him rouse the other Titans and give out orders, she had an epiphany: She did have faith, in the team and in their abilities when they worked together, but the one she believed in...

She smiled and sipped at her tea to hide it as the others filtered into the room, 'The one I believe in is you, Robin,' she told him silently.

And like all true epiphanies, once she accepted its truth, there was no fear or doubt or confusion...

There was only peace.

_xxxxxxxxxx_

**_Notes:  
_**(1) This is a quote of from William Shakespeare's "Macbeth". The full lines are: "By the pricking of my thumbs/ Something wicked this way comes." (IV. i. About lines 46-47)

**A/N:** This almost made it into the _Moments_ Vignettes, but although I thought it might work as a nice counterpoint to _Tea_, I wasn't too sure about it fitting in and then Jurodan said he agreed with me that it didn't work for _Moments_, so here it is...independent cover. I almost forgot about it, too. I sent it off to him quite a while ago, back before Puck woke up and starting wreaking faerie chaos by inspiring me to a gazillion things.  
**Thanks:** As always, to Jurodan for excellent Beta-work. And to everyone who supports me.  
**Side Note:** And for future reference, from now on, I'm going to be answering my reviews in my scraps livejournal. What I'll do is that even if it's a one-shot like this one, I'll post replies to reviews the next time I post anything and for chaptered stuff like _Moments_, I'll post the replies (still in my emsscraps journal) when I post the next chapter (which should be soon! It's off with the betas!) and the same for the one-shots for 7snogs I'm doing on Speedy/Rae.  
Meanwhile, I posted some 'will probably never be posted' scenes/ one-shots..._whatevers_ in the emsscraps back when I posted the first one-shot for _It's In His Kiss_. (In case you didn't know about it.)**  
Request:** I'm hankering for some good Rob/Rae fics and I'm having a helluva time finding some...anyone have any suggestions? They need to be well written, grammar wise and preferrably either regularly updated or complete. I don't mind them if they're one-shots. I also don't mind Rae/Speedy, Red-X/Rae and I might even consider Aqualad/Rae. Thanks!


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